Often I can only comfort myself with the thought, "Thou God seest Christ as He is, and as Thou comprehendest Him. Not I, but Thou knowest -what that Son of Thy love meant when He said, I go to My God and your God, to My Father and, your Father.' I cannot take it in; the Divine mind alone can trace the perfect comprehension of it."
What was the mind of those few gathered round their Lord down here? They were quickened men, and they knew by the instinct of that, given life, how precious He> who had given it was to their hearts. It is the secret of love to lead the heart captive the affections lay hold of an object, and just go where that object goes. Devotedness has more to do with the affections than with the intelligence. They saw Him go up to Heaven, and He did not come back. Did they love Him,? Where then were their hearts? Heaven became a new place to them; that living Man who loved them was there. That One who had stolen their hearts and carried them off to heaven. This is the first element of the heavenly calling, namely, attachment to a Divine person, the lover of our souls, and there He is in heaven, and we look for Him there where He is. The want of understanding this explains the low estate of many Christians: they are not heavenly Christians, as the early Christians were the whole way. But they are responsible to be so. Christ has a right, to have a heavenly people; to have, as Lord of all, a people who walk in the same steps that He did. Yes; He has a right to look for heavenly minds in a people whose hearts He has led captive and carried off into heaven. Do your first thoughts in everything turn intuitively to the heart of Christ in heaven, saying "He has aright to be first in this."
Are you one of those who are practically saying " Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" Does He say of you: " There is one in whom I have so crippled the flesh and all the delights of the old Adam, that he can only think of that one thing, i.e., that I am coming?" Is there such a thing as a people so waiting as that no thought of rest ever comes to the heart save with Him in heaven? Are hearts seeing Him and saying, " I am living to Him"?
In connection with the stoning of Stephen, Christ said " I am in the glory watching the whole scene." He is presented standing up in the place of glory where He is, letting the glory down into the soul of a man. As knowing Christ in heaven, my life should, as it were, wrap itself round Him, but in this scene I learn how His affections are wrapt round me; how, up there, His thoughts are occupied about me, not merely blessing me, but all His sympathy flowing down to me, as it did to the man who was being stoned.
If you take your place with a rejected Christ, you will have bright light on your path, and all that sympathy that flowed down to Stephen. Are you walking according to the vision of Christ in the glory up there, and as the reflector of Christ down here? Stephen passed through all the circumstances men and Satan brought him into, in the power of the vision of this glory of God. Why cannot I pass through all mine in the power of that glory? Is my mind, are my heart's affections, up there? Is it markedly seen that I am walking here in the light of-heaven? If so, whatever my place of service may be, I shall find myself just where the light is streaming down. As a rule I know that I shall find a strong current against me; a crowd may be going their way, and if impeded by it, I must cross over. If conscious that the light of heaven is streaming down, it puts us in contrast with the whole scene here.